Developers end option bid for vacant properties

Leonard SparksTimes Herald-Record

Friday

Oct 16, 2015 at 7:09 PMOct 16, 2015 at 7:09 PM

CITY OF NEWBURGH – A development group pursuing a condominium project centered on the Regal Bag building is ending its bid for an option-to-purchase agreement on seven vacant City of Newburgh properties after some Council members balked at the terms.

FD Water Street Holding LLC is no longer seeking an agreement in which it would have paid $21,330 upfront for exclusive rights to develop the vacant properties, including six on Water Street across from Regal Bag, and up to four years to buy them for $213,300.

At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, Councilman Cedric Brown and Councilwomen Cindy Holmes and Gay Lee raised concerns about the final purchase price on properties whose combined assessment is $300,800, according to county property records.

They also expressed uneasiness about a deal that would have essentially taken properties facing the Hudson River off the market with no guarantee that FD Holding would actually complete the project.

In the wake of those concerns, the Council postponed a vote on the proposed agreement.

“I have a problem with the purchase price,” Brown said. “You’re talking about premium real estate, and we have given away premium real estate in this city for nothing and got almost nothing out of it.”

FD Holding, which is managed by Joan Kaplan, the daughter of Regal Bag owner Bill Kaplan, told the Council during its Oct. 8 work session that the properties were key to a market-rate development comprising at least 167 condominium units.

The plan called for 108 units to be built on a stretch of vacant property along the western side of Water Street, Joan Kaplan and Jonathan Gatsik, another FD Holding representative, told the Council.

Another 59 units would have been built inside the massive Regal Bag building, which five years ago was at the center of a never-realized plan by Bill Kaplan to create a $60 million to $80 million complex of townhouses and condos.

Rents were to start at about $1,200.

“We withdrew our plans at this point,” Gatsik said on Friday. “But we’re continuing to work with the city on the development of Regal Bag.”

lsparks@th-record.com

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